It is almost certain that a government with a decent Parliamentary majority will win this as the bill represents what that government wants and the party whips will ensure that a smooth vote takes place.

Alex Johnstone, the parliamentary whip, said MSPs had only discussed a ‘broad position’.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister has had no difficulty in finding Parliamentary whips to organise majorities even for the most contentious legislation.

Christmas is special in many homes, but not when intruders whip four garden gnomes.

What's really annoying, from a sales assistant's point of view is when you look for something on the system and it says it's there, but you can't find it (probably because someone's whipped it) and the customer often then takes it out on you and you end up having a horrible day at work.

A word that came into English from old German and Dutch wippen ‘to swing, leap, dance’. The parliamentary whip, responsible for ensuring that party members turn up and vote in debates, was originally a whipper-in. This is a term in hunting, where the whipper-in uses his whip to keep the hounds from straying. The short form is first found in 1850. A whip-round, or collection of contributions of money, is related, coming in the 1860s from whip in the sense ‘a notice from a whip requiring MPs to attend a vote’. Since the late 17th century a whippersnapper has been a young person who is presumptuous or overconfident. It is literally ‘a person who cracks a whip’—the connection was probably making a lot of noise but achieving little. A whipping boy is a person who is blamed for the faults of others. Originally it was a boy who was educated with a young prince and, because it would not be right for a commoner to beat a royal person, punished instead of him.

Frases

when the whips are cracking

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Australian /NZ When the action starts:snob he may be, but he’s always there when the whips are cracking

the whip hand

He still has the whip hand, and concerns about his powers are spreading far beyond the elite of the Labour Party.

Other quoted car-dealer groups have also seen their values soar, buoyed by changes to regulations that once gave car makers the whip hand in their relationship with dealers, and by the strong British car market.

If they stick to their guns, to my mind great home cooks have the whip hand, delivering the most memorable, satisfying and delicious food you are ever likely to eat.